Zambo mayor orders crackdown on illegal recruiters

FEISTY MAYOR Beng Climaco has ordered authorities to crack down on illegal recruiters using the southern port city of Zamboanga for their nefarious activities following the rescue of dozens of women on their way to work illegally abroad.

56 women bound for Sabah stopped in Zamboanga

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Dozens of Filipinos who were on their way to work illegally abroad were intercepted in this southern port city before they could take a ferry for Sandakan City in the Malaysian state of Sabah, immigration officials said Wednesday. 

Immigration personnel in bribery scandal relieved!

PRESIDENT DUTERTE relieved all officials and employees of the Bureau of Immigration involved in a bribery scheme that allowed the entry and exit of Chinese nationals working for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGO. 

7,000 Pinoys barred from leaving country

Over 7,000 Filipino travelers were barred from leaving the country in the first quarter of this year due to the government’s intensified campaign against human trafficking, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.

BI Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said a total of 7,311 passengers were deferred for failure to comply with requirements for travelers bound overseas from January to March. “We have been very careful in assessing these travelers as we wanted to ensure that they will not be victimized by human traffickers and illegal recruiters,” he explained.

He said that in screening departing passengers, they follow the guidelines on departure formalities for international-bound passengers by Department of Justice (DOJ). He said that BI officers are duty-bound to strictly screen departing passengers because they “constitute the last line of defense in the government’s drive to combat trafficking in our ports”.

Medina also clarified that being disallowed does not mean perpetual denial to depart the country. “Passengers whose departures were previously deferred will be allowed after complying with requirements based on the DOJ guidelines. These requirements were set by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) to ensure that our kababayans are protected from being victimized abroad," he said.

Erwin Ortañez, head of the BI’s Travel Control and Enforcement Unit, said more than 6,000 or about 84 percent of the passengers came from NAIA while the rest were stopped in the airports of Mactan, Clark, Iloilo, Kalibo, and Davao.

He said that majority of the barred passengers had doubtful purpose of travel while some committed fraudulent acts such as misrepresentation and submitting spurious supporting documents. Among them were the underage overseas Filipino workers who were caught falsifying their birth dates in their passports and some Filipino workers who presented fake overseas employment certificates.

BI Commissioner Jaime Morente lauded his personnel for their vigilance even as he exhorted them not to relent in their efforts to combat human trafficking. “We will continue our drive to protect our countrymen from these syndicates who keep on sending workers abroad illegally, making them prone to abuse and exploitation in foreign lands,” he said. “The fight against human trafficking and illegal recruitment is a priority for this administration. Modern-day slavery has no place in this world, and we will make sure that Filipinos are protected from this threat,” Morente added.

Morente noted that the country retained its Tier 1 rating in the US State Department’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which was achieved through their efforts and other partner agencies. “We're one of the leading countries in the region when it comes to fighting human trafficking,” said Morente.

The premier TIP rating was retained by the Philippines for the third straight year and is one of 39 countries among 186 surveyed that continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts to fight trafficking. A Tier 1 rating is given to those who fully comply with the minimum standards of the US Trafficking Victim Protection Act. (Ferdinand Patinio)

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BI fields more personnel to airports as holiday rush begins

A TOTAL of 56 immigration officers will be deployed to different international airports to beef up their manpower in anticipation of the influx of international passengers that will enter and exit the country during the holiday break.

Bureau of Immigration’s (BI) Port Operations Division chief Grifton Medina said BI Commissioner Jaime Morente issued an order directing the concerned employees to report to their airport assignments starting this week.

“We are actually expecting an upsurge of travelers entering the Philippines by around the second or third week of December as Christmastime approaches,” Medina said.

Medina has recommended to the BI chief the implementation of a personnel augmentation scheme in view of the reported increase in the number of passengers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and other airports in the past few days.

Of the 56 BI officers given new assignments, 19 of them will be reporting to the NAIA while the 37 others were dispersed to the airports in Clark, Mactan, Kalibo, and Davao.

They are presently assigned at the BI main office and in other immigration field and satellite offices nationwide.

Medina noted that the additional manpower, and the opening of the 21 e-gates in major airports nationwide, would greatly reduce the queuing time of the traveling public.

“Our goal is to provide fast and smooth immigration inspection this Yuletide season. Our priority is the Overseas Filipino Workers who are here for Christmas. We are providing a more efficient service so that our kababayans will be able to spend more time with their families,” he added.

With this, the BI official clarified that the reassignment is only temporary and that the officials would return to their original posts in the second week of January when passenger volume at the airports is anticipated to drop.

Morente reportedly instructed Medina to “keep a close eye on the immigration lines in all international airports to ensure they are minimized”.

Likewise, he reiterated his standing directive to BI personnel in the different ports to maintain the highest state of alert during the Yuletide season.

The BI head added that they cannot allow human traffickers and other syndicates to take advantage of the holiday rush and use the country’s ports as venues for carrying out their nefarious activities. (Ferdinand Patinio)

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